Television, as the Academy Awards remind us every year, is a weird business. The idea that such a stilted, self-congratulatory event could continue to dominate the culture for an evening has never made much sense, but here we all are, with Jennifer Lawrence’s stumble and Seth MacFarlane’s cockiness and Quentin Tarantino’s sped-up diction topics of water-cooler discussion. But at least these people are famous. The still-baffling TV success of the NFL Draft—a three-day marathon of stressed-out men talking on phones, remember—is something else, and something even stranger. If that works, it’s quite possible that someday the NFL’s annual scouting combine, which began on Saturday and is set to wrap up on Tuesday, will become must-see TV.

We are, blessedly, not quite there yet. Given that the combine itself is mostly just a lot of jumping, running and taking-of-personality tests, it may be some time before it becomes even passably telegenic. “What the combine mostly proves—once again—is that the people will watch pretty much anything related to football, the nation’s most important cultural pastime,” the Journal’s Jason Gay writes, “after groaning about the Academy Awards.” (Although, to be fair, the Challenges of Hercules combine suggested by former NFL lineman Trevor Prycewould be pretty good TV.) But this year’s combine still offers plenty of drama, even if it isn’t the sort of drama that plays well on television.

Some of the drama is unavoidable, if only because so many types of players have so much riding on their combine performances. There’s some extra narrative complexity to be found here, though, as this year’s NFL Draft will feature an unusual number of players with unusual and confusing back stories. Among these are 2011 Heisman Trophy finalist Tyrann Mathieu, who didn’t play at all last season after disciplinary problems and 2012 Heisman finalist Manti Te’o, whose embarrassment was infinitely weirder, more virtual and much more complicated. Those collegiate stars, along with others of lower profile whose run-ins with team (and state and federal) rules, face a different challenge at the scouting combine than their peers. They jump and run like the rest, but they also have to convince NFL executives that they were worthy of trust.

For Mathieu, the challenge will be showing that his explosive skills as a kick returner and defensive back haven’t atrophied during his year away from football, and that his bad habits have diminished. For less-famous players like Alec Ogletree—a Georgia linebacker with a DUI and a pot arrest on his record—and former Tennessee receiver Da’Rick Rogers, the challenge will be to make any supposed “character issues” look like past-tense affairs. “At the core, the draft is all about risk vs. reward,” USA Today’s Jarrett Bell writes. “It’s just that some risks can make a decision-maker look a lot more foolish than others.”

Relative to the jumping and sprinting and the rest, this sort of high-stakes personal drama is pretty clearly the interesting part of the combine. It doesn’t necessarily translate easily to television, but give it time—if ESPN could figure out how to make the NFL Draft (sort of) watchable, this high-stakes reality show might have a future yet.

* * *

Danica Patrick won pole position at this year’s Daytona 500, became the first woman ever to lead for a lap at the event, and was in third place—and very much within striking distance of eventual winner Jimmie Johnson—as the race entered its final lap. She wound up falling back to eighth, but while she was surely disappointed not to win, her run at Daytona had the feel of a historic triumph. On a weekend that featured a scary and disconcertingly familiar crash during Saturday’s Nationwide Series opener, Patrick ended the event on a high note.

“There will always be some wanting more from Danica and some of that is fair. She can still win in a stock car. She can still contend for a title,” Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel writes. “Still, the idea of Patrick leading this race two different times for a total of five laps, running in the front, handling herself in packs with the best of the best, having at least a chance to win, even if her inexperience made it unlikely, was all thought to be a pipe dream when she made the full-time move to stock car racing last year.”

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